Update 2 Don’t read what’s written below. Read this instead. Update. Unfortunately, Rolling Stone mixed up two different Leonelas. Leonela Manturova has a friend named Leonela. These things happen. I quoted the magazine without sorting out which Leonela was which, and for that I apologize to all readers. A separate apology to Leonela Manturova: she did not book Filipp Kirkorov (a Russian pop singer) for her birthday. That said, it should be noted that all the other facts cited in the post—above all, the obvious mismatch between state official Manturov’s income and the places where he has worked—are correct. I’m not going to delete the post, since it’s already been written: The most astonishing story of the day is, of course, the birthday party of state “official” Manturov’s daughter. He serves as Minister of Industry and Trade.
http://www.minpromtorg.gov.ru/ministry See what a profoundly powerful quote from state official Manturov is displayed on the ministry’s website. I reread it several times and was simply crushed by the intellectual force pouring out of the monitor. It’s frightening even to imagine what lies there, beyond the ellipsis. So, state official Manturov is known to us as a man with suspiciously high income. In 2012, he declared 103 million rubles. Judging by his property and cars, state “official” Manturov has a taste for luxury and making an entrance.
These are important qualities for a state “official.” Useful for quickly identifying who’s an insider and who’s an outsider in the bureaucratic system. The problem is that studying state “official” Manturov’s official biography gives absolutely no answer to the question: where did he earn this money?
Since 1998, his entire career has been tied exclusively to defense-industry enterprises and state-owned companies. The Ulan-Ude plant, the Mil plant—these were all part of Oboronprom, and after that it was all federal state enterprises and government service. It is extremely hard to imagine that any of these places paid legal salaries in the millions of dollars. And yet there are clearly millions to be found. State “official” Manturov celebrated his daughter Lionela’s 20th birthday with the extravagance of an Arab sheikh.
According to Rolling Stone, which dug up this story, the celebration for the young daughter of this state “official” could not possibly have cost less than €500,000. After graduating from Moscow State University, which she attends in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, state official Manturov’s daughter Lionela plans to move to London. Let me remind you that 20 trillion rubles will be allocated in the coming years for the rearmament of the Russian armed forces. One of the main people responsible for distributing that money will be state “official” Manturov. So we need not worry about Lionela’s happy future in London. With twenty trillion on the table, these state “officials” will skim so much that they’ll be fighting over whether to book Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber for her 25th birthday. PS This is yet another illustration of why “illicit enrichment” should be added to the criminal code, and why officials should be required not merely to declare their income, but to explain where the money for their spending comes from.